


The Unimaginable

by bad_ash10



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Car Accident, F/M, Minor mentions of Phil Coulson, No happy ending here folks, Pregnancy, post-Bahrain Melinda May, pregnancy loss, very brief mention of abortion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27925297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bad_ash10/pseuds/bad_ash10
Summary: Melinda stared at little plastic stick in her hand. This couldn’t be happening. She didn’t deserve this after…No.She stopped herself, attempting to force memories from her mind of the last child she held just a few weeks before, but they came in flashes anyway.The stench of blood and sweat mingled with the stale dry air of the warehouse.The grimy floor below her as she shuffled backwards.The cold metal of the gun in her hands as she squeezed the trigger.The deafening silence that followed.The warm, stickiness of the blood that soaked her clothing as she held Katya.
Relationships: Andrew Garner/Melinda May, Phil Coulson & Melinda May
Comments: 14
Kudos: 19





	The Unimaginable

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in an angst mood. Anyone want to cry with me? Zi gave me this idea and I ran with it. Hope you like the angst!
> 
> TW: very brief mention of abortion, car accident, pregnancy loss

Melinda stared at little plastic stick in her hand. This couldn’t be happening. She didn’t deserve this after…

No.

She stopped herself, attempting to force memories from her mind of the last child she held just a few weeks before, but they came in flashes anyway.

> _The stench of blood and sweat mingled with the stale dry air of the warehouse._
> 
> _The grimy floor below her as she shuffled backwards._
> 
> _The cold metal of the gun in her hands as she squeezed the trigger._
> 
> _The deafening silence that followed._
> 
> _The warm, stickiness of the blood that soaked her clothing as she held Katya._

“Melinda?” her husband’s voice called from the other side of the door. “Are you ok? You’ve been in there over an hour.”

She trashed the plastic stick, not daring to look at the little positive sign again. Andrew couldn’t know about this. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to be psychoanalyzed or see the excitement on his face or maybe even the disappointment in his eyes.

She couldn’t _do_ this. She had no right to be a mother.

* * *

“Melinda?” Andrew asked softly from the doorway.

She didn’t move. Maybe he would think she was asleep.

“Can you explain this?” Andrew asked in a hurt voice.

She heard him moving closer, but still made no effort to address him.

He sat on the bed beside her and she knew what to expect. “It’s a pregnancy test, Melinda.”

Silence.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

What could she say? He knew the whole truth of what happened in Bahrain. Was that not enough of an answer why?

Andrew reached for her hand, but she jerked away quickly.

“Sorry.” Andrew said softly. “But Mel, we wanted this for so long. Both of us. We’ve talked about having kids and now you didn’t even tell me you’re pregnant. I _know_ you’re hurting after what happened, but this can be a _good_ thing.”

Melinda wasn’t so sure.

Her husband kept trying to get her to engage for a few more minutes, but eventually he left her alone again.

She was stuck. She had killed one child already. How could she trust herself with one of her own? But what if she didn’t have the baby? Andrew would fight her. He wanted kids. He’d want this.

The tone of his voice moments ago had confirmed that.

No. Melinda didn’t want an abortion, but she didn’t want to have this baby either. How do you make a decision when both options are impossible?

* * *

She was trying. _Really_ trying to be more like her old self. But she felt like an outsider in her own home, in her own life.

> _“But how do you get part of yourself back after you’ve lost it?” she’d asked in one of the Shield mandated therapy sessions during her administrative leave._
> 
> _“Every experience we have shapes who we are. Sometimes that’s big, like what you went through. Sometimes it’s so small you don’t even know a change has happened within you,” the therapist said with a shrug. “Sometimes it’s less about regaining who you_ were _, and instead, discovering who you_ are _.”_

As she lay on the table, the probe pressed firmly on her still-flat stomach, Melinda thought of those words. Who was she? Who is she? Could she be a mother?

She grudgingly let Andrew take her hand for the duration of the ultrasound. At first there was nothing, but suddenly there was a soft swishing noise the technician announced was a heartbeat.

Andrew was so excited to watch the screen as the tech took some images for them. For the first time in weeks, she felt a tiny ray of happiness blooming inside of herself.

Maybe she was wrong. _Maybe she could do this._

* * *

The more time that passed, the fewer bad days she had. Katya was always there, in the back of her mind, but she was making peace with choices that had led to the girl’s death. She continued going to therapy even after her required sessions came to an end, which she thought had helped tremendously. And now that she was in the second trimester of her pregnancy, that was easier, too.

“Andrew,” she said quietly one night as they were reading before bed.

He didn’t glance up from his book. “Hmm?”

“He’s moving. Do you want to feel?”

Melinda smiled as he hurriedly put his book on the nightstand and rolled over toward her. He put a hand on her belly and she guided him to the spot where she had just felt the baby moving a moment before.

“I don’t feel anything, Mel.”

“Give him a second,” she promised.

As soon as she had spoken, Andrew’s face lit up with wonder and joy at the little kicks right below his palm.

It was then that Melinda _knew_ she had been wrong. _She could do this._

* * *

Overall, her pregnancy had been relatively easy with no real issues so far. Her therapist was confident she was improving, and Melinda was actually enjoying her new desk job at Shield HQ.

Things were finally looking up after the hell she had endured in Bahrain. She still had nightmares about Katya from time to time, but her therapist told her that was a common occurrence after a trauma. She was doing well, all things considered.

“I can’t believe this is your last check-up before the baby comes,” Andrew said happily from the driver’s seat.

Melinda smiled and rested a hand on her belly. “In the beginning, I didn’t think we’d get here. But I’m glad we did.”

Andrew took her hand and squeezed gently. “I never doubted you, Mel.”

She saw the car barreling toward them before he did, but she didn’t even have time to scream before she felt the impact and the world turned upside down.

* * *

Melinda came to to the sound of something mechanical screeching, and a searing pain in her head.

Her Shield training took over and she took stock of what was around her. The windshield would be in millions of pieces if it hadn’t been safety glass, and instead looked opaque from the number of cracks running through it. Both front windows were gone, glass from them covering every surface around her.

She looked to her left, Andrew’s eyes were on her, but she knew he couldn’t see her.

Logic told her he was dead. She knew it even as she reached for him, even as she screamed his name, and even as she pleaded with the paramedics to save him.

It wasn’t until she felt a sharp pain in her abdomen that she stopped screaming for Andrew, and instead screamed for her unborn child.

“Ma’am, just hold on, we’re almost through cutting the door off the car so we can get to you!”

Another sharp pain tore through her abdomen.

No. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It was too early, and now Andrew was gone.

Suddenly she was lightheaded, dizzy. As she slipped into unconsciousness, she prayed to every God she knew, _“Please. I can't lose the baby, too.”_

* * *

Melinda opened her eyes slowly, blinking a few times in the bright light of the hospital room. She noticed Phil Coulson asleep in a chair next to her bed.

She dimly thought he must still her on her emergency contact list.

But where was Andrew?

And it all came back to her, the car crash, Andrew’s blank gaze, and… _her baby._

She looked down at her slightly smaller stomach and in the logical part of her brain, she knew he must have been delivered while she was unconscious. The pain she had felt in the car, She wondered if he had lived.

“Hey,” Phil said noticing she was awake. He gave her a pitying stare, and she knew. She knew her son had died, too.

What was left to do now, but cry?

So she did, her old partner once again holding her as she sobbed into his shirt as she had in Bahrain.

Killing Katya had been an unimaginable decision to make, but this? This felt like the universe was finally giving her what she deserved for making that decision.

Melinda realized that she wasn’t going to get the chance to discover whether she could or couldn’t be a mother. The decision was already made by some cruel twist of fate.

_She couldn’t do this._

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, Zi is amazing and wrote a happy ending for this on tumblr and you'll LOVE IT! I know I did. [Find it here!](https://agentsofcuteanimals.tumblr.com/post/636898566146850816/post-maos2013-ashleys-angst-for-lauren)
> 
> Before you @ me, here are pre-emptive answers to questions you may have:  
> -Yes, Melinda May is my favorite character.  
> -Yes, I just want her to be happy.  
> -Yes, I know I keep reading and writing fic where she is dead/dying/hurting.  
> -Yes, I am aware that these statements contradict each other.  
> -No, I will not stop read/ writing fic where she is dead/dying/hurting.  
> -No, I don't know why I keep hurting my own feelings like this.
> 
> Thanks for reading! There's another post-Bahrain angst fic bouncing around my brain, so keep an eye out for that in the near future!


End file.
